


Conversation

by orphan_account



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, Herc as a father figure to Arthur is and always will be the most important thing in the world, MJN Air Is A Family, Some angst, Summer Christmas 2014, aka Gordon is an asshole, past abusive language and behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A telephone conversation between Arthur and Herc. Set sometime pre-Vaduz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tmunz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmunz/gifts).



> Happy Summer Christmas!!!

“Arthur?”

Arthur grinned as he recognized the voice, and stretched himself up taller almost without realizing it. “Hi, Herc!”

“Hello, Arthur. How are you today? Not too bored at home by yourself?”

“I’m baking a cake,” he confessed, conspiratorially. “Mum and Skip and Douglas are flying Mr Alyhakin, and I’m not allowed to be on those flights since I’m not an official part of the crew, so I thought I’d do some baking for when she gets back.”

“She’s not at home, then?” asked Herc, and instantly Arthur felt guilty. He hadn’t meant to babble, but he _had_ been bored at home (not that he’d ever have admitted it to Herc, of course, since probably Herc would tell Mum and then she’d feel like she couldn’t leave him at home alone again, which was ridiculous really because he was nearly thirty!). Herc was brilliant, and Arthur was constantly worrying that he would say the wrong thing and that Herc would be disappointed in him.

“Sorry, I should have said sooner!” he said quickly. “She’ll be back tomorrow, or you could try satcomming, although I don’t know if the chaps will like it if you interrupt their word games.”

Herc’s smooth voice cut across his attempt at helpfulness. “Actually, Arthur, I wanted to talk to you.”

And just like that, Arthur’s whole insides seemed to inflate like a balloon – well, perhaps not _actually_ like a balloon, because that would probably be dangerous and also what if it burst, but definitely like a _metaphorical_ balloon. He got worried, sometimes, that Herc would think he was in the way. After all, Arthur had spent enough time around Gordon to realize that he managed to get in the way a lot without meaning to. Probably Herc didn’t know how much it meant to Arthur that Herc seemed to actually be interested in the things Arthur said.

“Arthur?”

Oh, right, he should probably talk to Herc, not just stand there grinning into the receiver.

“Yep, that’s great! I love talking!”

“Well, that’s good, because you might end up doing quite a bit of it.” Herc sounded – if it was possible, and of course Arthur could be wrong – a little bit nervous. “It so happens that I… I wanted to ask your advice.”

“Brilliant!” Arthur exclaimed automatically. Then his thoughts caught up to him. “I’m not sure how good I’ll be, though. Mostly people want Douglas for advice.”

Herc chuckled. “Oh, god, no. No, I couldn’t possibly talk to Douglas about this. It would be an absolute disaster. The thing is, it’s a rather _personal_ matter, and your opinion is the one I really want to hear.”

“Oooh, right.” Arthur reflected for a moment, then pulled out a chair and sat down, adjusting the phone until the plastic was snug against his ear. “Okay, I’m ready! Fire away.”

There was a crackle against his ear as Herc took a breath. “Arthur, you know that your mother and I have been going out for quite some time now.”

“Yep,” agreed Arthur. “It’s brilliant, actually, because she looks like she’s having fun more these days. She hasn’t hardly gone anywhere since Dad – since a while ago.” 

That had been a close thing. He didn’t want to mention Dad, not when talking to Herc. They were different. Herc was brilliant, and he wanted to talk to Arthur, and he made Mum happy – even though she acted irritable, Arthur could tell. Dad was – well, he hadn’t ever been like that. Talking to Dad never made Arthur feel proud.

“Does she really?” asked Herc, with a sort of flattered tone to his voice. “Look like she’s happier with me around, I mean.”

“Oh, absolutely!” Arthur hastened to reassure him. “She looks forward to seeing you loads and loads, and she’s started smiling more, and she doesn’t throw things at the telephone when it rings anymore and I think that’s because she thinks it might be you picking it up.”

“I won’t even ask about throwing things at the phone,” said Herc. “Well, that’s good for what I wanted to talk about, anyway. You see, I’ve been thinking, and. Well. I would very much like for your mother and I to get married.”

Married. And with that word, a whole lot of worrying came crashing down on Arthur like a ferocious polar bear.

_“It’s your bloody fault,” Dad was saying to Mum. “You married me, and now you want out? Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart, some of us are busy working to support the ungrateful women they married, and you can’t expect me to remember every little thing –“_

_“My son’s birthday is not a ‘little thing’, Gordon!” Mum is digging her nails into the palm of her hand, and from Arthur’s place behind the sofa he can see the red crescents her nails are leaving. “Yes, I married you, because I thought it was supposed to be about love – more fool me! But that does NOT give you license to neglect us both, just because there’s a bit of metal on my hand.”_

_“I’ll make it up to him!” Dad shouts. “We’ll go to the zoo tomorrow, alright? Will that satisfy you?”_

_“If you think I’m letting him go anywhere with you alone after what happened last time –“_

_“It was an ACCIDENT, Carolyn! Bloody hell, darling, how many more times! How was I supposed to know he was allergic to strawberries?”_

_“He’s your SON!” shouts Mum. Her voice is doing the wobbly thing._

_“Mum, it’s okay,” he says quietly, grabbing her hand and trying to stop her nails from making those awful marks on her palm. “I don’t mind, honestly –“_

_“Exactly!” exclaims Dad, and Arthur is filled with a twisted hope that maybe he’s said the right thing for once, maybe Dad’s grateful. But then Dad keeps talking. “I could miss every last one of his birthdays, and he probably wouldn’t even notice. The boy’s an idiot, sweetheart, it doesn’t make any difference to him and I’m certainly not going to spend my valuable time trying to remember how to coddle the imbecile –“_

_“ENOUGH!” Mum screams. “That is it, Gordon. I forbid you to talk about my son in that way. In the morning, he and I are going to see a lawyer, and we are going to get a divorce, and we are going to leave. I have had enough.”_

_Dad, for a moment, looks taken aback. “Sweetheart –“_

_“Do NOT ‘sweetheart’ me, Gordon.” Mum’s voice is chilly, but her hand is burning hot in Arthur’s. Arthur turns scared eyes to his dad._

_“Fine,” Dad says. “Fine. But remember, DARLING, you got us into this mess. You were the one who wanted to get bloody married. Couldn’t handle being a proper wife, could you? It’s your own fault.”_

_Arthur waits for Mum to say something, to stop the scary words that are pouring out of Dad’s mouth, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just stands, and shakes, and cries._

“Arthur?”

Arthur jumped at the sudden sound of Herc’s voice, and blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the awful memories.

“Arthur, are you alright?”

“Yes,” he tried, but it wasn’t coming out as cheerful as usual. “Actually, maybe not. No, I’m alright. I was just – remembering some stuff.”

There was a pause on the line. Arthur held on to the phone tightly.

“Is this about your father?” said Herc eventually. “Sorry, but Carolyn’s told me a couple things, and I’ve picked up a general impression of how things were.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur in a small voice. To his surprise, he felt like he wanted to trust Herc with this. He hadn’t ever talked about Dad with anyone, but Herc felt reassuring. “Before Mum got the divorce, he said some things, and, it was all just awful. It’s better now that he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“I do want you to marry Mum, though,” said Arthur, realizing to his surprise as he said it that it was true. Herc wouldn’t be ‘Dad’, he’d still be Herc. And Herc thought Arthur was brilliant, and he argued with Mum all the time but it was never serious arguing, it was only bickering, like Skip and Douglas. Herc fit into Arthur’s worldview as a good person to have around, and it was silly to be so scared when Dad and Herc were so very different.

“Really?”

“It’d be brilliant!” Arthur’s words were flowing more easily now. “Because then we’d have a family!”

“I certainly hope so,” said Herc quietly. “I don’t just want to do this for your mother, you know. I wanted to see how you’d feel about having me as a father-in-law. The crux of the matter is that I’d be proud if you were my son, and I hope we can do that.”

The kitchen blurred around Arthur, and it took him a minute to realise that he was tearing up. Wow. He’d thought people only cried from happiness at the ends of those soppy romance movies that Douglas liked to watch.

“I’m not sure how your mother will take it, though,” Herc confided.

Arthur managed a laugh. “She’ll probably be really grumpy about it at first.”

“I don’t think I can stand another sheep,” said Herc palely. “Let’s hope she thinks it over, though. Thank you very much for talking to me about this, Arthur, you’ve helped to clear things up for me a lot.”

“No problem! Glad I could help!” Arthur meant it. He loved helping, and whenever he managed to be actually helpful it gave him the most brilliant zingy sort of feeling. Like the feeling he’d got after eating Fizzy Yoghurt, only less nauseous.

He went to put down the phone, and then stopped. “Herc,” he said. “Obviously it’ll be brilliant if Mum does end up agreeing to marry you, but just in case she doesn’t. Well, the way I see it, it doesn’t really matter either way. Because we’re still a family. You and me and Mum, and Skip and Douglas, and everyone around the airfield. So you don’t even really need to marry her if you don’t want. It’s brilliant either way.”

Herc laughed again. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I suppose you’re right – we are a family, aren’t we? I’m sure Douglas and Martin would be just thrilled to hear that. Anyway, I’d best let you get back to your cake. Good luck with that, and do be careful not to poison anyone.”

“I will!” Arthur was actually fairly good at cake, and he knew that Herc knew that, and that meant that Herc was just teasing.

“Oh, and Arthur? Thank you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! as ever, any kind of feedback is very much appreciated.  
> and yeah I have so many unfinished fics oops maybe someday I will get around to writing some more of those but in the meantime please accept this instead  
> (I'm actually working on a loong Jeeves and Wooster fic but I haven't finished it and I am not going to post it until I finish it otherwise it will remain unfinished forever, but yeah, that's what you can expect from me in the probably-nearish future)  
> I can be found at arthnoldpendragon.tumblr.com these days; come and say hi and let's be friends or whatever


End file.
